


The Wall

by lasairfhiona



Series: Fiona Saga [9]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasairfhiona/pseuds/lasairfhiona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe, Duncan and Fiona take a trip to Washington DC</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wall

Seacouver. November 1998

"Fiona, tell me again why you want to go to Washington?" Joe asked, wondering why she was so adamant about going to the Capital.

"Because there is a Celtic exhibit at the Smithsonian's East Wing I want to see," she explained one more time. She'd been telling him about the exhibit for over a month now so it wasn't as if he didn't know. She turned to see Duncan leaning against the bar. "Duncan, you might be interested in this too. Artifacts and jewelry from the British Isles. Some pieces dating back to the Iceni and others as recent as the 16th century."

"Sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind going to see something like that. Joe, you going to make me take this lady of yours without you?" he teased, throwing an arm around Fiona. He knew there was no way Joe wouldn't let Fiona go anywhere without him unless it was absolutely necessary, but he teased him about it nevertheless.

The moment of frivolity was lost when Fiona and Duncan froze. Joe recognized the signs--another Immortal. They waited to see who would come through the door. Would it be friend or foe?

"Joe, you going to let this overgrown boyscout move in on your lady?" Methos called from the shadows as he walked across the bar.

Recognising Methos, both Fiona and Duncan relaxed. Definitely friend.

"He's harmless," Joe replied, nodding toward Duncan. "Unlike you." He enjoyed the light banter between them.

Methos finally turned toward the others, "Irish. MacLeod."

Fiona moved away from Duncan and headed toward Methos. "It's good to see you 'Old Man'. Did you just get into town?" she asked giving him a hug.

Methos kept her close and ran a few teasing touches down Fiona's back, just trying to get a rise out of Joe, which he knew would come.

"Hey! Get your hands off her!" Joe harassed back while he poured a glass of beer for Methos, knowing that the eldest Immortal would want one. Methos drank beer like most people water. His arrival mercifully distracted them from their conversation about Fiona's desire to go to the exhibit in Washington, DC. The more she was distracted, the better. He hoped he could keep it up until the exhibit closed. Washington was the last place he wanted to go, especially this time of year.

The foursome kept their light banter up all evening. Fiona and Methos occasionally pitched in behind the bar when it got to busy for Joe to handle alone. When the crowd finally started to thin near closing time, they found themselves gathered around their usual table in the back of the bar.

"So, Joe," Duncan decided to broach the subject of the exhibit once again, "Methos is here, he can take over at the bar for you and you can go do Washington with us."

"MacLeod, what are you volunteering me for?" Methos asked, looking at him skeptically. He wasn't sure he wanted to know why the Highlander was volunteering him for bartending duty.

"You can take over for Joe at the bar so he doesn't have to worry about it. Then he can come to Washington for a Celtic artifact exhibit with Fiona and I."

"And?" Methos questioned, he knew there had to be more.

"And what? Duncan and I want to go. Joe doesn't, and he's using the bar as an excuse and now with you here, there is someone to look out after it for him. Besides it's been fifty years or more since I've been there." Fiona explained.

Joe threw up his hands, there was no way that he'd be able to not go now, especially with Methos here. He could, of course, just tell them that he didn't want to be in the capitol for Veterans Day, but then he'd have to talk about Vietnam and he didn't want to do that either. Some things were better left alone.

"So Fee, you going to tell me what's really going on?" Methos asked after Joe left from where he was perched on the kitchen counter watching more then helping her with the dishes. He'd stopped by that morning to have coffee with his friends.

"Nothing. Just the exhibit."

"Then why doesn't Joe want to go to DC?" he asked, taking the dish from her hand and proceeding to dry it.

"It's Veteran's Day and they are having a big function near The Wall," she said quietly, letting her hands sink back into the sudsy water.

Methos didn't answer right away. "Are you really going for the exhibit or for the Veterans Rally?"

She looked up at him, knowing only he would ask that question out loud. Duncan never had. But she also knew the Highlander planned to go to the rally. He had no qualms about stepping back into his past. "The exhibit, I really do want to see it. And I really haven't been to the city in fifty plus years."

"But?" Methos could tell there was a but coming. There usually was when Fiona was playing both ends as he suspected she was trying to do now.

"Joe's been having flashbacks and nightmares again. Maybe this will help him put it at peace," she admitted quietly. She'd been through flashbacks with him before but these had a different tenor and they worried her. She felt like she had to do something to help him get past whatever was haunting him.

"Fee, don't force him into something he doesn't want. You know, I love you, but I don't want to see you hurt him with your good intentions, he doesn't deserve it," Methos advised, taking the dish from her hand and making her look at him.

Fiona looked up at him and smiled. "I know Methos. I just don't want to see him hurting and he's hurting because of this right now." She bowed her head and looked away from his scrutiny.

"Do you have any idea what triggered the flashbacks?"

"No, not a clue. He's been quieter than normal about them. He used to talk to me about them before but now he doesn't say anything. In fact he ignores they even happened." She sighed, frustrated.

"Do you want me to try and talk to him?" he offered.

"No. I don't know. I don't think he'd talk about it even if you did ask. And if you did then he'd think this was all some kind of conspiracy against him. And it's not."

Methos hopped of his perch on the counter and hugged Fiona from behind, resting his chin on her head. "You know old friend, Joe will talk when he's ready to talk, and if he doesn't you have to let him have that secret. I know you. I know you like to have everyone get the hard stuff out in the open, but sometimes things are better left buried. Trust me."

"I know, but it doesn't make it any easier." She leaned back in his embrace. "The past few months haven't exactly been easy for you either have they?"

"No, but we cope and move on," he said releasing her and moving away.

Fiona watched him as he went to stare out the window. She knew that was what he'd been doing as well, coping. The after math of the discovery of him being one of the Horsemen rocked their community of friends.

"Methos?"

"Yeah, Fee." He replied not turning around.

"I think Joe's nightmares have to do with you and the Horsemen," she said quietly. She hadn't wanted to put anymore on him, or lay the blame on his past but she also couldn't keep this from him.

Methos turned and looked at her, "Why?"

"I was in Ireland when it all broke loose here. I remember coming back and Joe telling me about what happened and his defense of you. We spent a lot of time talking about 'Nam and his experiences there. It was his way of telling Duncan and I about why he could understand what you had been and why he thought you'd changed. He'd been there too."

Methos shrugged, turning back toward the window. "I don't know, maybe. The gods know I've had enough flashbacks myself."

Fiona barely heard his reply and longed to go comfort her friend but just the set of Methos' shoulders told her that it wouldn't be welcomed.

He watched as she adjusted the headset of the walkman she always carried with her. He knew she hoped the Celtic music would drown out the surrounding din of their fellow travelers. For as much as she complained about flying, she was also so childlike as she peered steadily out the window, watching as the landscape below flowed from tall craggy mountains to high plateaus with mosaic patterns making it look like an elaborate quilt pattern. Joe figured her 'surveillance' of the passing land below was her way to keep a connection to it when she could no longer feel it under her feet.

Grasping her small hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed her fingertips. Fiona turned from her watchful vigilance and smiled, before snuggling against him with only a final glance to the window. The flight to Washington would only take five hours but she'd been so keyed up about going that she hadn't slept. His own fears about being in that city at this time of the year made him restless and Fee never could sleep when he was restless.

Joe pulled the blanket closer around he and Fiona, and leaned back to rest himself...

He hadn't expected to enjoy being in Washington, there was way too much government here for his tastes, but he did. For the past three days, Joe let Duncan and Fiona drag him around to all the museums.

He laughed at their snide comments about certain priceless artifacts that were really just useless cast-offs. And stood quiet, offering support when one or both of his companions were reminded of something from their past.

For Fiona it was the Iceni exhibit. There were so many reminders of her childhood. She paled at the recognition given to the people responsible for her family's death. Joe could only stand and watch as she struggled with her demons, and knew by her body language that what she wanted most to do was to smash the exhibit in front of her.

Duncan was calmer, but there were times when Joe wasn't sure what was going through the Highlander's head. Duncan would get a far off expression as if he'd get lost in a memory. Fiona and Duncan both reminisced about past lives although neither said much about their early years. While they wandered through the Asian exhibits and Duncan reminisced about his time with Hideo Koto and Mai Ling.

Joe knew of those demons. He had enough of them from his time in Vietnam. He knew the overwhelming desire to strike back at the establishment responsible for the deaths of the men in his platoon. He was considered one of the lucky ones. He had come home. Not whole, but home never the less. He landed by a twist of fate with a job and a new life that led him away from the horrors he'd lived through in Vietnam and into a new kind of horror. The horror of having to 'watch' someone he'd become close to fight and possibly lose their life.

As they sat in a diner not too far from the Mall having a late night coffee and ice cream sundaes, Joe realized, his fear they would somehow persuade him to go to the Veteran's Memorial, was unfounded. They had almost gone out of their way to avoid the various Vietnam memorials all week. He was glad of it. It gave him the time to decide if he wanted to go to the Wall, to see the names of the men he'd fought along side. To see the name of Andrew Cord and know that name was what led him to where he was now. Led him to the people who were important to him. And even though he grumbled about there "being too much politics" and "too much government," he liked Washington, especially when he got to see it through Duncan and Fiona's eyes.

Joe slid out of the booth and stood holding a hand out to Fiona. "Let's go."

She looked up at him, confused. "Where?"

"The Wall," he said quietly, as if saying it out loud would make him change his mind.   
Fiona slid out of the seat and grabbed her coat. She knew Duncan would follow. They had both been waiting for this moment. Duncan had already been to visit that part of his past.

Tomorrow was Veterans Day. Joe had decided he really did want to go to the Wall. It had been over twenty years since he had left Vietnam and tried to put most of the memories behind him. To make peace with the things he'd seen. The things that he'd done in the name of war. For the most part he'd succeeded. Cord's appearance a few years ago and then Methos' admittance about the Horseman brought it all crashing back down on him. The final straw had been when the invitation for a reunion from what was left of his old unit came.

Fiona had been there to calm him when the dreams came back but this time they were too deep and he didn't want to talk about them. This time they were about him - the things he did, the things he saw, and the loss of his own legs.

Joe stopped and looked at the vast blackness of the Wall. It was late, near midnight, and the fog settled over the Mall obscuring everything but the lighted walkway and the Wall it's self.

"He's not alone," Fiona whispered, stopping Duncan from following. Together they stood and watched as he slowly walked toward the monument. They waited at the beginning of the path and let him continue alone, allowing him to absorb the power of the Wall and the memories.

While he stood there, leaning heavily on his cane, he could hear the voices of the men, some friends, some people he never knew. They were calling to him, welcoming him. Thanking him for remembering.

He stood there for a long while, just looking at it, thanking God for allowing him to survive it and setting him on the path to his future. For if it hadn't been for that infernal war and Andy, he might never have friends and loved ones like the two people who stood waiting for him.

Joe turned and walked back toward where Fiona and Duncan now sat on nearby benches. He stopped midway at the bend in the Wall to watch them, their heads bent together in conversation, the light reflecting off their dark hair. He noticed for the first time how much alike they looked. Both had their hair loose, Fiona's all pulled to one side and Duncan's loose about his shoulders. Even their dress was similar, the turtlenecks, heavy knit sweaters, jeans and long coats to conceal the swords he knew were tucked into specially made compartments.

He watched as Fiona looked up and saw him watching them. Her smile warmed his heart. Yes, for as much as he hated 'Nam and what happened there, he was grateful because it led to him finding Fiona and he wouldn't trade that for anything. He walked slowly toward them, taking in the Wall one last time as he went. A few steps from joining his friend and his lover, he turned and looked back along the Wall. The fog settled in along the page and dimmed the lights to just a glow. He straightened and gave one last salute before turning back to Fiona and Duncan.

"Let's go home," he said, wrapping his arms around Fiona. He'd done what he need to do. He'd made his peace.

The End


End file.
